Memo #4

I'm not surprised by my findings after speaking with students and teachers.  First, let me backtrack to earlier in the semester to take you on a path which will lead to now.  As I sat in class at RIC and observed, I started to grasp how I got off track as a young writer.  I don't think I was willing to do the nitty gritty work of drafting, rewriting, peer editing, and teacher editing which might have built the foundation for me to be a lifelong writer.  Oh, I have written several things over the years I've been proud of-a diary from my honeymoon, my trip to Vietnam to adopt my daughter, and more.  But I was not consistent and so I slipped into thinking and acting like a non-writer.  As I sat in my classes this semester and became willing (the teachers were there!) I started to feel like a decent writer.  This surprised me!  Then I had an observation in the high school in which a group of 18 students gave out a collective "ugh" when told they would be sharing their writing that day.  They had plenty of warning and a safe environment, with a teacher who had been building expectations such as thisall year.  And still they felt that collective crappy feeling. 
So writing is, as we all know, deeply personal.  My first teacher to respond to my survey  felt very strongly that she should never make reading your writing aloud part of an assignment.  I think it's safe to say these are extremely reluctant readers and writers and their teacher only asks for volunteers and may get one or two, but usually not.  My North Prvidence teacher, when giving students options to read or not,  gets students who allow other students and even the teacher to read their writing before they will read it.  That is interesting to me, surprising even.  Is it because they actually like what they wrote but don't like reading?  Or, because they don't like their writing but know it must be read to get a certain grade?  I may find out before my placement is done.  Now, I see a certain student in North Providence who actually offers to read aloud their writing and they usually ham it up.  This is rare, and I really like if we fast forward to ten years from now, we'll see this student on the stage! 
When it comes to peer editing and teacher editing, my students who took the survey felt that peer editing was helpful.  The teachers also saw it as helpful, but saw the need to restrict the corrections to content because the student editor is frequently someone who is also often struggling with proper usage and sentence structure, just like the student.  My students saw less help with teacher editing, and felt they would end up rewriting the whole paper, which frustrated them.
What it all means to me is that writing in personal-it is now, it was when I went to school, and it will be when my children's children go to school. 
The setting where the Rhode Island Writing Project has a presence was clearly the place where more writing takes place and more reading it aloud, along with editing.  From what I can see, the RIWP gives teachers needed support to push students past the personal point, where they can see that doing the extra work produces more wiritng and more writing increases the chance of better writing!
In moving forward, I wish to look at the practices of the RIWP, and the larger NWP, to the specific practices.  The teacher in the RIWP asked for help in particular areas, and this is the sign of a professional who feels supported.  This is where I wish to hang my hat!